Spurs-Warriors Preview

By ALAN FERGUSONPosted Apr 15 2012 2:23PM

The San Antonio Spurs have all but secured one of the top two seeds in the Western Conference, and they're not overly concerned with which one they get.

The Spurs will try to aid their chances of finishing atop the conference by extending their dominance of the short-handed and struggling Golden State Warriors at Oracle Arena on Monday night.

San Antonio (42-16) clinched its ninth division title in 12 seasons Saturday with a 105-91 victory over Phoenix. The Spurs jumped out to a 35-13 lead after one quarter and led by 24 at halftime, allowing coach Gregg Popovich to once again rest his starters.

Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Tim Duncan, the latter of whom had a team-best 19 points, didn't play during the final period and for much of the second half. None of San Antonio's 13 active players logged more than 25 minutes.

The win kept the Spurs one game back of Oklahoma City in the West - they're even in the loss column - but Duncan says his team is not obsessed with that race.

"We're going to end up where we end up. There's no reason to sit there and study it," he said. "We're going to play these games as best as we can.

"We're in a great position right now. Hopefully we can end on top. If we don't, hopefully we're number two and we're happy with that."

San Antonio will try to help itself with a 14th consecutive victory over the Warriors (22-37). The Spurs have also prevailed in 46 of 53 matchups and five in a row in northern California.

This time, they'll face a team that's lost three key players and traded away another last month.

David Lee is the latest Golden State starter who's likely out for the season. An MRI on Friday revealed the power forward has a strained groin and a stress reaction.

The Warriors are already missing Andrew Bogut (ankle), Stephen Curry (ankle) and former Spur Richard Jefferson (knee). Bogut was acquired in a deal that sent leading scorer Monta Ellis to Milwaukee on March 14, and Jefferson was shipped from San Antonio to Golden State the next day.

Ellis scored 38 points and Curry had 20 during a 101-95 loss in San Antonio on Jan. 4, their only meeting this season.

Golden State is 4-16 since trading away Ellis and suffered its fourth straight loss Saturday, 112-104 at the Los Angeles Clippers. The Warriors stayed competitive by hitting 15 3-pointers - one shy of their season high - but could never take command after being outscored 24-5 in the first six minutes.

Nate Robinson scored a season-high 28 points and was one of four Golden State players to top 20.

"We're undermanned and undersized, but we fought. There's no quit in us," said swingman Klay Thompson, who had 24 points for the second straight game. "We've been short-handed all year, so it's a learning experience, especially for us rookies."

Manu Ginobili, who sat out the win in January with a broken left hand, has averaged 22.0 points on 52.9 percent shooting in his last five matchups. He scored a team-best 20 during the most recent visit to Oakland, a 113-102 win Jan. 24, 2011.

Former Warriors guard Stephen Jackson, acquired in the Jefferson deal after playing for Milwaukee, has scored at least 30 points in each of his last two games at Oracle Arena.

Copyright 2012 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited

Spurs make it 14 straight over Warriors

Posted Apr 17 2012 2:40AM

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) Tim Duncan couldn't remember the last time he was healthy and played only 12 minutes in a game.

The way San Antonio coach Greg Popovich has the final two weeks of the season mapped out, Duncan may need to get used to it.

Duncan scored 13 points in his shortest night of work this season, Tiago Splitter added 15 points and eight rebounds and the Spurs beat the Golden State Warriors 120-99 on Monday night to move into the top spot in the Western Conference.

"We understood the situation, we got the comfortable lead and Pop made the call," Duncan said of his brief appearance. "It was the right call. Our main focus is to be healthy and have our legs."

Duncan took only eight shots in the game and never took his warmup pullover off in the second half, part of Popovich's plan to keep his starters fresh for the postseason.

It was the second straight game in which San Antonio's Big Three of Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili spent more time on the bench than on the court.

Popovich said before the game he was more concerned with his team's health than he was in trying to get a better seeding in the West, especially with the Spurs playing the first of three games in three nights.

Parker (eight points, five assists) and Ginobili (12 points) joined Duncan on the bench in the second half when the Spurs led by as many as 32 points.

"Trying to win is part of it, trying to stay healthy is part of it," said Popovich, who called this his deepest team ever in San Antonio. "That's got to be our main concern, not positioning."

Gary Neal added 17 points for the Spurs, winners of 17 of their last 20. San Antonio moved percentage points ahead of Oklahoma City in the race for the No. 1 seed in the West. The Thunder lost 92-77 to the Los Angeles Clippers.

"We're in the run for it," Duncan said. "We're going to do our best to try to win the West but it's not going to break our hearts if we don't. We want to be healthy more than anything."

Nate Robinson had a season-high 30 points and Klay Thompson scored 29 for Golden State, which has lost 14 straight to San Antonio.

Duncan and Parker started but went to the bench late in the first quarter after San Antonio scored 14 straight points to take a comfortable lead.

It helped that the Spurs were playing a Golden State team that is limping to the finish.

The short-handed Warriors, who became the first team in more than nine years to start four rookies, didn't put up much of a fight in losing their fifth straight.

Already without injured point guard Stephen Curry for the past month, Golden State played without starting forward David Lee (strained groin, stress fracture), center Andris Biedrins (mild concussion) and backup forward Richard Jefferson (knee). That forced coach Mark Jackson to start all three of the team's draft picks this year along with reserve center, Mickell Gladness, who was originally signed to a 10-day contract in late March.

"It was unique," Thompson said. "We were trying to make the most of it."

San Antonio led by 15 points at the end of the first quarter and was ahead 51-30 early in the second before Golden State's best run of the game nearly cut the gap in half and forced Popovich to put Duncan and Parker back in.

Duncan quickly made a layup and two long jumpers, Parker added two free throws and the Spurs went up 70-49 at halftime.

Even with most of the starters back the bench, San Antonio continued to pull away in the second half.

Neal, Danny Green and Matt Bonner made consecutive 3s to make it 80-55. Two free throws by Patty Mills later pushed the Spurs lead to 94-62.

Green finished with 11 points and five rebounds, one of six San Antonio players in double figures.

Notes: It's the first time in franchise history that the Warriors have started four rookies in a game, according to Elias Sports Bureau which has been tracking the stat since the 1970-71 season. The Denver Nuggets were the last NBA team to do it when they started four against Orlando on March 9, 2003. ... The Warriors signed veteran C Mikki Moore for the remainder of the season. The 36-year-old Moore played in 23 games for Golden State in 2009-10 but was out of the NBA last season. ... The Spurs haven't lost to the Warriors since Jan. 7, 2008.

Copyright 2012 by STATS LLC and Associated Press. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Associated Press is strictly prohibited

Notebook: Spurs 120, Warriors 99

Posted Tuesday April 17, 2012 2:08AM

By Geoff Lepper, for NBA.com

THE FACTS: Gary Neal had a team-high 17 points with five assists and Tiago Splitter added 15 points and eight rebounds as the San Antonio Spurs spread the wealth effectively Monday in a 120-99 romp over the Golden State Warriors that put them back on top of the Western Conference standings.

Neal led the Spurs in playing time with just 25 minutes. Tim Duncan had 13 points in 11 first-half minutes before shutting things down at intermission as San Antonio prepared for the final two legs of its all-California back-to-back-to-back. The Spurs (43-16), who moved percentage points ahead of Oklahoma City (44-17) with the Thunder's loss to the Clippers, face the Lakers in Los Angeles on Tuesday, then finish their trip in Sacramento on Wednesday.

Nate Robinson paced the Warriors with a game- and season-high 30 points, adding seven assists, but 15 of those points came in the fourth quarter, when the Spurs had thoroughly emptied their bench. Klay Thompson had 29 points, eight rebounds and five assists as one of four Golden State rookies to start.

QUOTABLE: "It's always good to start out a game and be able to hold onto a lead in the NBA. Sometimes it's your worst nightmare to get a big lead in the first quarter, but I thought they sustained it pretty well." -- Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich.

THE STAT: The Spurs turned the game into a foul-line parade from the opening tap. San Antonio took 17 free throws in the first quarter alone, and had 43 on the evening, tying their season high. The 36-15 disparity in points at the line more than made up for the fact that San Antonio only shot 39.1 percent from the field.

TURNING POINT: The game was decided as soon as Warriors head coach Mark Jackson turned in his lineup card. The injury-riddled Warriors put eighth-year forward Dorell Wright on the floor to open the game, along with four rookies: shooting guard Thompson, point guard Charles Jenkins, power forward Jeremy Tyler and center Mickell Gladness, who got his first career NBA start in place of injured Andris Biedrins (mild concussion).

This marked the first instance in the Elias Sports Bureau's 41-plus seasons of tracking starting lineups that the Warriors had used four rookies at the same time -- meaning it's happened once in the franchise's last 3,390 games.

The lineup was predictably bad, flopping to a 13-5 deficit before Brandon Rush entered the game with 7:26 remaining in the first quarter as the Warriors' first sub. San Antonio led 39-24 after the first quarter to end any suspense.

FANTASY SPOTLIGHT: With Tony Parker (14:52), Manu Ginobili (14:35) and Duncan (11:18) playing very limited minutes and none past halftime, the door was open for other Spurts to step through and take advantage. Splitter came through with his biggest scoring night in almost a month, and Neal was four points off his season high.

QUOTABLE II: "They are extremely well coached, which is obvious, by one of the best ever to do it. They have three guys that'll one day in the Hall of Fame. They're very efficient. They make you pay when you make mistakes. They're an outstanding basketball team and they will be a very tough out come playoff time, because of those things." -- Warriors head coach Jackson.

HOT AND NOT: Thompson alternated between either extreme all night. He started 0-for-4, drained six straight shots, then clanked another five in a row before finishing on a 6-for-7 kick. All told, he went 12-for-22 on the evening.

ROOKIE WATCH: Spurs forward Kawhi Leonard had seven points and seven boards in just 16 minutes before resting for the final 20:55.

INSIDE THE ARENA: Spurs swingman Stephen Jackson and Warriors center Andrew Bogut -- teammates in Milwaukee for the first two-thirds of this season before they were shipped out of town last month -- caught up in the hallway outside San Antonio's locker room. Jackson did an exaggerated double-take at seeing Bogut, who's been out since January with a fractured left ankle, is no longer wearing a walking boot on that foot.

NOTABLE: Several hours before tipoff, the Warriors officially signed center Mikki Moore for his second stint with Golden State. Moore told the Contra Costa Times that he'd been working on his 1972 Chevrolet Chevelle when the Warriors' call came through. Moore, who previously played for Golden State in 2009-10, clocked 8:31, with two points, four boards and five fouls. . . . San Antonio has won 14 straight against the Warriors, and 46 of the last 53. . . . The Spurs' 70-point first half represents the most points allowed by Golden State in any half this season. . . . Tyler wound up with his first career double-double, carding 11 points and 10 rebounds. . . . The last NBA team before the Warriors to start four rookies in the same game was the Denver Nuggets, who trotted out the ageless Juwan Howard alongside then-newcomers Nene, Nikoloz Tskitishvili, Junior Harrington and Vincent Yarbrough against Orlando on March 9, 2003. Not surprisingly, the Nuggets lost, 111-98.